Geography 521
Research Seminar: Critical GIS
W 2:30-5:20 (Winter 2012)
This seminar explores conceptual, epistemological,
and methodological
elements of critical GIS research. Critical GIS is defined in many
different
ways but some of its central commitments include:
Our exploration of critical GIS through the
quarter is
organized around some of the central dimensions of critiques of GIS
(and
responses to them), including cartographic and geovisual
representation,
digital spatial data, mixed methodologies, epistemological
possibilities and
limitations, and participation/deliberation.
Further, we consider not just GIS as such, but an ever-expanding
number
of new spatial-digital innovations – interactive online mapping
services,
handheld spatial devices, geotagged multimedia, crowdsourced geographic
data
sets, the ‘geoweb’, and more. The proliferation of these
new spatial media mean
that critical GIS must now be conceived beyond conventional forms of
geographic
information systems and our conceptual and methodological frameworks
reconsidered accordingly.
.